Life History Project - Essay Example

Life History Project INTRODUCTION This paper seeks to help readers in understand how civilizations of teachers influence their thinking and teaching practice. This assignment will entail interviewing Anna Thomas, an Australian citizen, born in Kenyan but leaves in UK. Anna was born in Africa and raised in Africa during her earlier years in life. He later moved to UK. This shows a contrast between two civilizations that Anna has been exposed to in her life. This assignment seeks to reveal the various aspects of the subject’s cultural interaction and experiences. This will help us in understanding how individual behaviour is affected by the society in which they live. Even though an exhaustive life history investigation of the practices and beliefs of a single educator has little worth as far as making generalizations on other teachers is concerned, it can be exceptionally useful as a means of expounding on the understanding of ones practices and beliefs. Hart (2003) argues that we should expand the concept of generalizability to incorporate the learning which people experience whenever they read about sole cases. Beginning as teacher, Anna would have impressively valued reading narrative stories of others educators who had struggled out of situations similar to her own. Life history is the aggregation of social, economic and political events that define an individual (Goodson & Gill, 2011, pg. 148). Life history of an individual focuses on all significant and insignificant life events that the individual has gone through. It is through the life history of an individual that biographies and autobiographies are written. When seeking to learn about civilization and aspects of sociology from life histories of people, it is important to select an individual with a rich historical background. Selecting a person to be interviewed for the purpose of obtaining their life history will depend on the type of information and the desired outcome from such an interview. METHODOLOGY To learn about the experience, beliefs and practices of Anna`s life, I conducted a formal interview alongside an informal conversation with Anna over a three-month period. I also made about three visits to her place to have a first-hand experience as a participant observer and record field notes. Moreover, I spoke with a couple of her friends, colleagues, relatives, and past and current students and all of them were familiar with her teaching skills and practices and her thought about cultural diversity. Another source of equally important information included at least 18 academic papers which she had written for different college courses she took throughout her career. Anna regularly discussed issues, in these papers, related to cultural diversity and practice while providing insights into her own thinking. Finally, she offered me copies of several professional documents, such as newspaper clippings talking about her and past and current assessments of her teaching done by different school administrators among other professional documents. Assembled together, all of this vital information allowed me to construct a thorough narrative portrait of her life history as a cultural teacher, with a specific focus on the understanding of cultural diversity and practice. The following step-by-step process enabled me to accomplish my mission. 1. In general, I had a couple of topics in mind, which were neither specific question, word-for-word, nor were they in a specific sequence. However, I saw it necessary to have start-up questions so as to get my interviewee and myself comfortable before I could change to my topic list. 2. I planned for the topic and the form of my first substantial question to adopt after the phase of “settling down”. I asked her questions which prompted a long answer in an attempt to “get my subject going”. 3. I asked easy questions first, such as the very personal and emotionally demanding set of questions after a rapport had been developed and then gently proceed with lighter questions. I also ended as I began, but not with bombshells. 4. I asked her one questions at a time. 5. I allowed silence to do part of the work for me; I wait for her answers. 6. I resolved to be a good listener while using body language like looking at her, nodding, and at times smiling so as to encourage and send the signal, “I am interested in her story”. 7. Where necessary, I used verbal encouragement like “how interesting that was!” or “this is superb information!” However, I was careful enough not to “shower” the interview with words such as “uh-huh,” whispered while the interviewee was speaking. 8. I sought for specific instances whenever the interviewee made general statements and yet I desire to know more. 9. As Goodson & Gill (2011) advise, ask for definitions or explanations of terms that the interviewee adopts and that have vital meaning for your interview. For example, I ask Anna what she meant by “socialization?” How it happens and its purpose. 10. At times, I rephrased and then re-asked certain important questions so as to get a detailed amount of information she knew. 11. My sets of questions were phrased in a way that they could not be responded to with a simple “No” or “yes”. The questions were partly to find out what the Anna did and partly what she thought or felt concerning what she did. Interviewer’s Field Notes Soon after my interview with Anna, as the interviewer, I sat down and made field notes in a systematized manner, before time dampens the details. According to Pahl & Rowsell (2012), the notes are somehow like the field notes of anthropologist. Pahl & Rowsell says the interviewers notes can tell who, when, what, and where and they add anything which will assist future scholars or the transcriber to comprehend the interview. Life history form may contain very little information or desire information, depending on the purposes of study. Personal information is very valuable and particularly suggested when the interview is about a life history project or when the interview is to be kept for future use. Apart from interviewees address, name, telephone number, birthplace, and birthdate the form asked for the names, day of death for parents, birth dates of siblings, partner and children. It also asked for places he lived in, work and education and histories besides requiring her to list special skills and memberships in organizations. Ethical Issues Morgan, Kunkel & Morgan (2011) maintains that we must always treat our subject as ends in themselves, not as just means to an end. In line with this tenet, I tried to show the greatest respect for Anna and her students and colleagues. This implies that I never included personal information which might cause them undue embarrassment. I did not incorporate personal information which Anna requested me to keep away from the record. My records also excluded the gossip about cultural teachers, administrators, and students that I overheard when I visited the school, though part of it was so exciting and relevant to my investigation. During my work, I placed ethical concerns above the principles of necessity, accuracy and relevance; the reason was that there were sufficient interesting, accurate, and relevant stories for me narrate without probing into issues which violated the mutual respect and trust that I had worked hard to create and maintain between me and Anna. Such a stand raises a significant issue, nonetheless. If was to differ with the participant in determining what to incorporate and what to “keep off the records”, then what would prevented them from distorting and diluting the chronological account of events? What self-assurance will readers have that actually they are being told the “truth?" Finally, I opted that this worry was unwarranted since it assumes that only one way of telling a story exist. It presumes a singular reality. Still I got a story that precisely conveys the meaning and ambiance of Anna`s situation without disclosing aspect of her which I got familiar with. DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS A life history analysis, as in the case of Anna, will involve examining every of the aspects of life history data: the order and the sequence as well as the timing of events (transitions). Annas belief about education is closely related to her own experiences. To grow up in an extended family which included immigrant lineage that had been meagerly educated and could not write or read, she was always much aware that a person can have worth or dignity minus being literate. “My own experience showed me that individuals who did not attend proper schools can be good people and are actually good people,” she said. It is not school alone which made someone valuable. According to (Paul, 2011, pg. 135), literacy is not something which hinders a persons ethical positions, moral development or intelligence. That sort of conflict is something clear. It is constant in my own awareness of how grown-ups would treat kids in school settings with different sorts of skills or non-conventional beliefs toward literacy. Even though Anna always considered literacy in utilitarian and humanistic terms, her first teaching practice in middle school replicated concepts of literacy that were in line with the formal curriculum which she felt indebted to embrace. Hall & Simeral (2008) claim in the early years students were in some sort of deficit mode; they were coming out of school without skills, and without ways of performing the work they should to do. People considered themselves very traditional; as the people who were to mitigate error and the kind of stand between the learners texts and ideal writing (Craig, Meijer & Broeckmans, 2013, pg. 93). That was a model of learning for many and they had been schooled in that setting. Students consider what some of their colleagues are doing and the experiences of people that are highly regarded and think they need to do exactly the same thing. Anna labored so hard to ensure this kind of schooling work and she was quite successful according to her colleagues and supervisors. However, Anna was never fully contented with the results. “I knew that children sitting with Roberts English Series paperback in 7th or 8th grade while writing out transformational grammar sentences did not become productive,” she said. The writing that children were doing was simply reproducing whatever was in the schoolbooks, completely far from their lives. She had little or no interest in reading them, so they were not making any sense in terms of originality. However, when they would converse after class, the kids were eager to tell stories, and she was also dying to listen. Why would we read other folks stories and consider them legitimate? Why can we listen to the childrens own stories and create that as part of classroom`s activity? Frustrated with her incapacity to make these sorts of connections with the students, after some years of teaching (8 years), Anna went for a leave from her job, shifted to a new city where she joined a graduate school. A year later, she came back to UK and accepted another teaching position at one college, where she stayed for twenty years. Anna and her colleagues acknowledged this one-year as a pivotal point in her own career; it signified the commencement of a sluggish but steady shift in her teaching practices - a shift towards learners. It was the start of a centered practice which was much more in line with her utilitarian and humanistic beliefs regarding literacy that were procreated by her own experiences with her lineage. “I think, generally, the change was a bit sluggish and evolutionary. It perhaps begun back with my uncertainty way during the start of my career,” Anna said. But she stuck with much of bad teaching practice because she basically did not feel capable of making those changes. Back then she was young and believed that she was responsible to changing a system, other than being responsible to children. “As a mature educator, who can, a little differently, look at the school system and feel less responsible to such a system than to students who turn up at the classroom door, I believe that by serving these students, I am actually being answerable to the system. In simple terms, Annas current educational practices were closely linked to her core beliefs concerning literacy, teaching, and learners. Nonetheless, the association was not every time a close one. Initially in her career, she possessed a range of beliefs which arose from an amalgamation of her babyhood experiences in high school and her experiences in the university as a pre-service educator. These momentary, school-based beliefs directed many of her initial teaching practices. For instance, she at first taught reading as one skill with heaps of worksheets. Her writing assignments, by then, appeared to be formulaic and teacher-directed. At that time, though, Anna possessed more permanent beliefs which were strongly based on her babyhood and adulthood experiences out of school. For instance, remembering her kinfolk’s experiences; her parents and lineage, she strongly held that writing and reading were exciting and dynamic activities which had utilitarian roles - but this notion had little initial influence on her first teaching practices. When she tried to execute teaching practices built upon her own school-based dogmas, and was disappointed with the outcomes, she gradually started to explore other means of teaching. With time, Anna either reshaped or abandoned many of her previous beliefs and borrowed from other more stable beliefs in order to establish a functional education. It was a concrete move - one which she made in reaction to what her job demands - and the changeover was sluggish, haphazard, and distinctive, with no clear beginning or end. However, one thing which remained constant was her aspiration to be a prosperous teacher and her dedication to be analytically self-reflective concerning her practices and beliefs. An in-depth investigation of a single educator like Anna can also be utilized to build theory. According to Eggen & Kauchak (2012), for instance, some researchers pose a tendency to consider beliefs of teachers as uni-dimensional and substitutable entities, which can be swayed through indirect or direct interventions. The aim of such investigators, it appears, is to change teachers` thinking in certain way - an aim that they freely admit is exceedingly difficult to achieve (Sherin, Jacobs & Philipp, 2011, pg. 64). In line with my research with Anna Thomas, there arises a theory which may help to illuminate this difficulty. Maybe beliefs are not always uni-dimensional and substitutable. CONCLUSION In conclusion, each of us has a story to tell. We give our own experiences an order by organizing our live memories into stories. Life history listens and gives account to these stories. If people do not gather and preserve their memories, their stories, then a time will come when they will fade forever. Annas current educational practices were closely linked to her core beliefs concerning literacy, teaching, and learners. However, the association was not a close one. Originally in her career, she held a range of beliefs which arose from an amalgamation of her babyhood experiences in high school and her experiences in the university as a pre-service educator. These momentary, school-based beliefs directed many of her initial teaching practices. With time, Anna either reshaped or abandoned many of her previous beliefs and borrowed from other more stable beliefs in order to establish a functional education. Anna`s life history was researched based on the following guidelines: A central issue (literacy and education system) was formulate; I conducted background research on the issue; interview her and conversed with her friends and colleagues; I evaluated the research review and her interview; presented the results in discussion and achieved the information. Reference List Bardonner, J. A., & Indiana University, Bloomington. 2007. Through the looking glass. A glimpse into two different approaches to teaching content area literacy: A critical literacy/critical stance approach and a balanced/cognitive strategy approach and their impact on preservice teachers self-efficacy, meta cognition, and learner-centeredness. (Dissertation Abstracts International, 70-6.) Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University. Eggen, P. D., & Kauchak, D. P. 2012. Strategies and models for teachers: Teaching content and thinking skills. Boston: Pearson. Goodson, I., & Gill, S. 2011. Narrative pedagogy: Life history and learning. New York: Peter Lang. Hall, P. A., & Simeral, A. 2008. Building teachers capacity for success: A collaborative approach for coaches and school leaders. Alexandria, Va: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Hart, P. 2003. Teachers thinking in environmental education: Consciousness and responsibility. New York: Peter Lang. In Craig, C. J., In Meijer, P. C., & In Broeckmans, J. 2013. From teacher thinking to teachers and teaching: The evolution of a research community : thirtieth anniversary volume of the International Study Association on teachers and teaching. London: Emerald group publ. In Freeman, Y. S., & In Freeman, D. E. 2014. Research on preparing preservice teachers to work effectively with emergent bilinguals. In Keengwe, J., In Onchwari, G., In Hucks, D., & IGI Global,. 2014. Literacy enrichment and technology integration in pre-service teacher education. Landsman, J., & Lewis, C. W. 2011. White teachers, diverse classrooms: Creating inclusive schools, building on students diversity, and providing true educational equity. Sterling, Va: Stylus Pub. Morgan, L. A., Kunkel, S., & Morgan, L. A. 2011. Aging, society, and the life course. New York: Springer Pub. Pahl, K., & Rowsell, J. 2012. Literacy and education: Understanding the new literacy studies in the classroom. Los Angeles, Calif: London. Paul, S. 2011. Tunes for teachers: Teaching ... thematic units, thinking skills, time-on-task and transitions. S.l.: Authorhouse. Raths, J., & McAninch, A. R. 2004. Teacher beliefs and classroom performance: The impact of teacher education. Greenwich, Conn: Information Age. Sherin, M. G., Jacobs, V. R., & Philipp, R. A. 2011. Mathematics teacher noticing: Seeing through teachers eyes. New York: Routledge. Appendices Interview transcript Interviewer: Student Interviewee: A distinguish educator in college, Mrs. Anna Thomas Interview Setting: The interview was conducted in Anna`s newly acquired house. The interview was done at 10:20 AM on Tuesday morning. Affiliation with interviewee: Anna was a friend I first met in at a function in Victoria Park, in Australia. Since then, I have visited her several times in her classroom work. I have also converse with her on a number of occasions. Beginning of Interview: Interviewer: What was life like growing up? Interviewee: My childhood life was not comfy as is typical with contemporary high-class children. I was brought up in a larger family which included immigrant lineage that had been meagerly educated and could not write or read. Interviewer: Tell me about any life changing events that might have occurred to you in your growing up? Interviewee: As I have just mentioned, I was brought up in sparsely educated family. Getting further education and being well conversant with the education system was one thing which I will forever be grateful for. You know I was ffrustrated with my incapacity to make connections with the students, after some years of teaching (8 years) and I took a leave from my job. I shifted to a new city where I joined a graduate school. What I got from this graduate school changed my life even though I was always much aware that a person can have worth or dignity minus being literate. My own experience showed me that individuals who attend proper schools can be good people and are actually good people. Interviewer: Why was this life changing for you? Interviewee: Initially in my career, I possessed a range of beliefs which arose from an amalgamation of my babyhood experiences in high school and my experiences in the university as a pre-service educator. These momentary, school-based beliefs directed many of my initial teaching practices. For instance, I at first taught reading as one skill with heaps of worksheets. My writing assignments, by then, appeared to be formulaic and teacher-directed. At that time, though, I possessed more permanent beliefs which were strongly based on my babyhood and adulthood experiences out of school. For instance, remembering my kinfolk’s experiences; my parents and lineage, I strongly held that writing and reading were exciting and dynamic activities which had utilitarian roles - but this notion had little initial influence on my first teaching practices. When I tried to execute teaching practices built upon my own school-based dogmas, and I was disappointed with the outcomes, I gradually started to explore other means of teaching while in the graduate school. With time, I either reshaped or abandoned many of my previous beliefs and borrowed from other more stable beliefs in order to establish a functional education. It was a concrete move - one which I made in reaction to what my job demands - and the changeover was sluggish, haphazard, and distinctive, with no clear beginning or end. Interviewer: How did you deal with this change of teaching practice? Interviewer: I just slowly adapted to the new ways of establishing a functional teaching practice, which encourage literacy at tender age. Interviewer: In what ways did this event change your life? Interviewee: Let me say that the writing that children were doing then was simply reproducing whatever was in the schoolbooks, completely far from their lives. I had little or no interest in reading them, since they were not making any sense in terms of originality. However, when they would converse after class, the kids were eager to tell stories, and I was also dying to listen. Why would we read other folks stories and consider them legitimate? Why can we listen to the childrens own stories and create that as part of classroom`s activity? A year later, after I came back to UK straight from graduate school, I accepted another teaching position at one college, where I stayed for twenty years. My colleagues and I acknowledged this one-year further studies as a pivotal point in my own career; it marked the start of a slow but sure shift in my teaching practices - a shift towards learners. It was the start of a centered practice which was much more in line with my utilitarian and humanistic beliefs regarding literacy that were procreated by my own experiences with my lineage. I think, generally, the change was a bit sluggish and evolutionary. It perhaps began back with my uncertainty way during the start of my career. But let me tell you that teaching children is an unsociable profession where practitioners have restricted opportunities to relate with their co-workers. As an educator, I at times went for weeks or days without ever having noteworthy interactions with other grown-ups. Interviewer: How did you feel about this back then? Interviewee: It never hit my mind and thoughts that if pre-service educator joins college with traditional approach toward learning and teaching, which slowly get more progressive while in college – but just temporarily - then maybe it is because his or her teacher education experiences did not actually challenged his or her existing thinking. I did not know that authentic change happens when ones belief has been challenged in certain way and revealed to be lacking. I felt that the duty of teacher educators, thus, was not to find ways of highlighting any recognized shortcomings and irregularities of the existing beliefs of pre-service teachers - not so that alternative beliefs may be mechanically implanted in them, but rather as ways of self-discovery from which pre-service educators have more insights into their own thinking and establish functional pedagogies which are both theoretically consistent and sound with who they really are as people. As such, I felt that teaching could be understood as a science, rather than as an artistic way of self-expression. Interviewer: How do you feel now that you are talking about it? Interviewee: I feel great and talking to you now is a woman with a daunting intellect – I feel so passionate about literacy and that includes poetry, the written word, and literature. I feel I am in love with books that gives ideas in literacy. I know I have lived my life in pursuit of my passion. I still need to focus a matchless deal of my energy on teaching alongside scholarly interests. Interviewer: Looking back what would you have changed or done differently, if you could? Interviewee: I think I would have averted the fate of my lineage. I would have equipped them with literacy skills by taking them to college. I would not have been a pre-service teacher as I was before. The relative incompetence of the college experiences to impact the enduring thinking of pre-service educators needs to be well-documented. Pre-service teachers joined college with traditional ideas about learning and teaching, momentarily become more liberal while in college, but then return to their prior concepts as soon as they student-teach or join full-time employment. Pre-service teachers frequently embraced the practices taught during their education courses minus fully embracing or understanding the models on which they are founded. They depended heavily on their own pre-existing belief, even though these beliefs were diametrically opposite of the teaching practices which they were actively adopting. Interviewer: What made you decide that you are going to come and live in the United Kingdom? Interviewee: I have always perceived United Kingdom as having a rich history in terms of poetry, literature, and written words. There were nearly certainly schools in UK during the Roman invention, because near the end of their first century Juvenal did relate that articulate Gauls were training Brits to plead causes while Thule was deliberating the creation of a Rhetoric learning institution. However, when the Romans moved out of Britain and civilization followed them at least for subsequent centuries. Whatever other British institutions that survived its change to England, school and churches did not survive the transformation all that much. So I decided to come and be part of the humanity that was to help restore what the Romans started. Interviewer: What was it like living in the London when you first came to the United Kingdom? Interviewee: Wow, what should I say? The good side? Well plenty of green countryside. UK was very green then all year around. Whenever I went shopping since it I lived in small vicinity the shop owners were nice and would say hello. UK`s weather was generally mild year in year out, so for people who do not prefer hot weather like me did not get that in UK. This UK had lots of parks. You could see lots of men, women and young people walking their dogs. I use to enjoy that since the dogs were always happy to meet other people. Mmmh for the negatives, well use to rains a lot and you could fight mold and moss. The other thing I could not just live up to was getting anything done. I could not imagine that when I needed to inquire about my phone bill, bank statement or anything, making those calls could cost me money per minute. At times I was very unlucky to get a manage or customer service woman who really was rude and could not help me but only promise me they will always call me back. Guess what, some of these customer service persons never ever call back. Bad customer service around UK was very difficult to cope up to with. It really irritated me to no end. But I just had to accept it.  Interviewer: How did you manage to adjust to your new environment? Interviewee: I can tell you it was very hard to adjust since little unpleasant things piled up and I just had to live with them. Let me tell you I had to live minus hot running water for some time. All in all it soon became part of my daily life and as you know I had, once in my childhood, experienced such hardships. I just got used to everything. Interviewer: Comparing life in your homeland/country to life in the UK, how do you feel about the two? Interviewee: There is no much difference between my country and UK. But what I noted here in UK was that no electrical outlets were allowed inside the bathrooms. Really these are small things which are not mentioned and one would never consider they would make a difference in the two countries but when one experiences these staffs they add up. Unlike in Australia, UK`s shops do not remain open late in the night unless you live in a big city. You require to plan in advance for weekends and particularly on Sundays. For me again this is not too big deal but still make a difference. Where I live here the main thing to do on a weekend is to visit your local inn to get a drink. This is about it in my own words.  Drinking and being drunk is massive here on a weekend. Of course not everyone does this but majority do since it is an illegal thing to do. This is not the case back in my country. For me personally shifting here has changed me immensely. I cannot take all we have for granted again. On a lighter not, you know Australia has a lot to offer (laughing and shaking my hand). For everything Australia has to offer, I reasonably had easy life there. I think how people in Australia are such entrepreneurs who think through the future. Again, they tell you what they think and so you may know where you disagree or agree. It is never like that here in UK at all. Interviewer: What make life different in the two countries? Interviewee: I think UK experiences high cost of living yet the wages are simply low. For instance, it costs me around 700 pounds each month let alone the car tax, gas, insurance, and food for living. That means you are only lucky if you get a job in which you labor on average 47 hours each week for so as get monthly income of perhaps 750 pounds. UK workforces are not paid over time. I think if one is a teacher, lawyer/solicitor, or doctor, then he or she can do fine here; if not he or she needs to get ready to struggle a little. But then this depends on where one lives too. Like here in London is much expensive yet the wages for which one may be skilled to do are low. Life in Australia is a bit cheap and the wages are reasonable for all. Well, for UK locals, they are curious and interesting people as to why one would move from Victoria to here. It is all have to do with the great sunny weather in Victoria for them. I recall in the local inn, they were genuine and polite in their conversation and I enjoy that. Interviewer: What advice would you give to the younger generations about chasing their dreams and going to places they have never been? Interviewee: If they have that one thing they are passionate about and that makes them feel good inside, that one place in the world where you they dream of visiting, then there is just one place in which all of these can happen: their imagination of their dreams. Not only will their imagination give them super dreams, but it is another word which has different meaning. Your imagination will help you “follow your dreams.” Singing, acting, dancing, whatever interest you is definitely your dream. But there is one significant thing to do prior to achieving your dream - follow it. We know that life can take one anywhere and so go for it! Do not fear to dream about it! And the moment you feel it, then you got it! I think I can simply tell them this life changing guide on how young people can chase their dreams; in life we always have one or more things that we dream of but then we think we will never achieve it or them. Therefore, they should not only follow their dreams but also always believe in themselves and their abilities. Think about your dream, take one step each time, practice more often, and get some information about your dream. Life is always a difficult assignment and we are delicate creatures who are expected to highly functional. We are asked to accomplish small and great things each day and so achieving your dreams cannot be beyond your reach. The young generation must know this if at all they want to go places and achieve their dreams. Interviewer: Thank you very much Mrs. Anna, it was a pleasure talking to you. Interviewee: You are welcome and feel free to talk to me any time (smiling) (End of the interview) Read More